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Lincoln 



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PROCEEDINGS IN Th'F 

Supreme Court of Illinois 

commemoratino 

The 100TH Anniversary of his Birth 




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PRESENTED BY 



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Compliments of 




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ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Proceedings Commemorative of the One Hundredth 

Anniversary of the Birth of Abraham 
Lincoln, February ii, 1909. 



At the February term, 1909, of the Supreme Court the 
following- proceedings in commemoration of the one hun- 
dredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham' Lincoln were 
had, February 11, 1909 : 

Mr. Chief Justice Cartwright : 

The court is advised that a representation of the bar associa- 
tion are present to present a memorial, and the court will now 
listen to it. 

Col. Nathan William MacChesney : 

May it please the court — It is seldom that it would be appropri- 
ate to break in upon the work of the court and ask it to take the 
time which is necessarily given to the work before it, for anything 
rise than that work; but it is deemed suitable that upon this oc- 
casion some recognition should be given to the fact that this State, 
as a whole, is about to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of 
the birth of Abraham Lincoln. The significance of the event lias 
been recognized by executive proclamation and by a joint resolu- 
tion of the General Assembly. It would be fitting if this court, 
also, as the representative of the other great branch of the gov 
eminent, might take official recognition of this great centennial. 

The State of Illinois has been aroused as never before. The 
people throughout the State realize the service that Abraham Lin- 
coln rendered to them and to the nation. The citizens of Chicago 



have planned the greatest celebration which that city has ever had 
in its history, — community-wide in its aspect and educational in its 
nature. The citizens of Springfield have planned a unique and 
comprehensive program, reviewing the life and services of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, to be participated in by distinguished representatives 
of foreign countries, — thus typifying the world-wide appeal of the 
man whom they honor. It is peculiarly appropriate that these two- 
communities should do this, for in Springfield was his life as a 
lawyer spent. It was here that many of his greatest addresses 
were made, and it was from here that he went, with a sense of 
sadness, to take upon him the oath of office of President of the 
United States. On the other hand, it was in Chicago that he wa- 
nominated for the presidency. It was there that he issued the 
challenge to Judge Douglas for the series of famous joint debates,, 
and it was there that he made his first reply to Judge Douglas in 
that series which made his candidacy for the presidency po c sihle. 
nay, inevitable. 

Chicago is to observe the centenary of the birth of this great 
Illinoisan, not by a meeting for the favored few. but by a great 
civic celebration, in order that all the people may realize the spirit 
that animated Lincoln and perhaps catch it in their own lives, ^o 
that they, too, may render something of the service that he ren- 
dered to the State that he loved and served so well. It is there- 
fore appropriate that Chicago should come here, represented by 
one of her bar, and in the presence of this distinguished tribunal 
pay a brief tribute to the memory of Abraham Lincoln the lawyer. 
And on behalf of the mayor of Chicago and the citizens* commit- 
tee I desire to present to this court a bronze tablet on which is in- 
scribed the Gettysburg address of Lincoln, which is tl c creed of 
American patriotism, in order that some enduring memorial may 
lie erected in this building in commemoration of this event. 

The services of Lincoln are so wide and so varied that it would 
be impossible to review them, even it" 1 were able to do so. In 
this presence it would be both unnecessar} and presumptuous to 
attempt it. The life o\ Lincoln attracts us from whatever direc- 



tion we approach him. As a man he was all comprehensive in his 
sympathies and in his appeal to the people. Before he was ad- 
mitted to the bar, as a business man he exampled the highest 
commercial integrity, — so much so, that it was thought at the time 
that he was almost finical in his ideas on the subject; but to-day 
is realized the inspiration his sterling honesty has been to thou- 
sands of young men entering upon commercial careers. 

As a lawyer we know that he stood for the highest standards 
of the profession. He was a constant advocate before this court 
during the years preceding his entrance upon the larger duties of 
national life. His name frequently appears in the volumes of this 
court from the December term, 1840, to the January term, i860. 
The judgment of the bar which knew him was eloquently ex- 
pressed in an address before the full bench of the Supreme Court 
at Ottawa on May 3, 1865. by the Hon. J. D. Caton, formerly chief 
justice, who presented a memorial which was spread upon your 
records and which appears in the 37th of Illinois. 

Lincoln as a man, I repeat, was all-comprehensive in his ap- 
peal. As between man and man he stood for equality of rights. 
He knew no church, he knew no faction, he knew no section, — no 
north, no south, no east, no west. He knew only the Union. He 
had no racial antipathies. His life was given to the working out 
of justice so far as he knew it, and we can only marvel that he 
knew it so well. It is therefore especially appropriate that this 
court should take fitting recognition of his life. 

Lincoln, perhaps as no other man, made his appeal to the peo- 
ple as a whole. He is, in fact, the prototype of American citizen- 
ship. — the ideal of the nation realized. It has been said that he is 
•"the first American." and truly so. for in him for the first time 
were embodied the ideals which we all believe should go to make 
up American manhood, and to him we look for inspiration for the 
upbuilding of that manhood and the inculcation of those ideals in 
the citizenship of the future. 

What better tribute could be paid to Lincoln and the spirit that 
guided and directed his private life and professional and public 



career than to spread upon the records of this court that immortal 
definition which he gave at Alton of the eternal issue in life's 
struggle and to recognize the truth that he ever chose the right, 
lie there said : 

"That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in 
this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and my- 
self shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these prin- 
ciples — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the 
two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of 
time and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common 
right of humanity, and the other the 'divine right of kings.' It is 
the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself." 

Let these words stand as our tribute to the life of this man. — 
citizen of Illinois, lawyer of this bar, greatest son of the State and 
nation, the apotheosis of American manhood. 

By the Chief 1 Justice: 

Mr. Justice Hand will respond on behalf of the court. 

Mr. Justice Hand: 

In the public mind the fame of Mr. Lincoln has in the past 
rested, and will in the future largely rest, upon his conduct of the 
war of the rebellion, the liberation of the black man from bondage 
and the preservation of the union of the States; and by reason 
of the great height to which, as a patriot and statesman, lie at- 
tained, the fact that he was a great lawyer when elected president 
has been largely overlooked, and the further fact thai the training 
and development which enabled him to meet and solve the great 
questions which confronted him during the years that intervened 
between the firing upon Fort Sumter and the surrender at Rich- 
mond had been acquired while he was practicing law in the courts 
of Illinois has generally been lost sight oi by the people, and some* 
of his biographers, even, have passed over, with hut little note, the 
great work of preparation in which he was engaged in his law oi 
fice and in the courts where he practiced from 1837 to i860. I 



quote from one of his biographers, who says: "lie had had no 
experience in diplomacy and statesmanship. As an attorney he 
had dealt only with local and State statutes. He had never argued 
a case in the Supreme Court and he had never studied interna- 
tional law." And we often hear it said by his eulogists, that with- 
out training in statecraft or in the law he was called from his 
humble surroundings by his fellow-countrymen to assume responsi- 
bilities which well might have deterred the wisest, the most ex- 
perienced and the bravest man who had ever been called to rule 
over the destinies of men or of nations; and it has been said, in 
some mysterious way, without any previous preparation either by 
study or experience, within a few weeks — at most within a few 
months — after his election as president he developed into the fore- 
most man in modern history. That view of the life of Mr. Lin- 
coln is based upon a total misapprehension of his history. Mr. 
Lincoln, at the time he took the oath of office as president of the 
United States, was a great lawyer and a statesman of broad views, 
and while in all his undertakings for the preservation of the Union 
he recognized an all-wise overruling providence, he was thoroughly 
trained, prepared and amply qualified by a long course of study and 
by much reflection to perform the great work to which he had 
been called, and which preparation and reflection, throughout his 
turbulent administration, gave him the forbearance and wisdom 
which was necessary to enable him to accomplish with a brave and 
steadfast purpose the great undertaking to which he had conse- 
crated his life. 

It must not be supposed, however, that Mr. Lincoln reached the 
then high position which he occupied at once or without the most 
persistent and painstaking labor, which extended over many years 
of his eventful life. Mr. Lincoln came from good New England 
stock, with which was mixed that of Kentucky. He was admitted 
to the bar in 1836 and commenced the practice of his profession 
in 1837. Prior to that time he had been a farmhand, a river boat- 
man, a soldier in the Pdackhawk war, a deputy county surveyor, a 
postmaster and a member of die Slate legislature, and while be 



then had but little knowledge of books, be knew well the motives 
.which control the actions of men. 

During his professional career Mr. Lincoln had three law part- 
ners : Major John T. Stuart, Judge Stephen T. Logan and Wil- 
liam H. Herndon. When he entered uopn the practice of the law 
the country was new and the people were poor. The courts were 
held in log houses. There were few law books to be had and 
the litigation involved but little in amount, — the civil cases being 
mainly actions of assumpsit based upon promissory notes and ac- 
counts, and actions of tort for the recovery of damages for as- 
saults, slanders, etc., and the criminal ca^-es generally involved 
some form of personal violence, and most of the lawyers of that 
day divided their time between the law and politics. 

When Mr. Lincoln, in the spring of i ^37, came to Springfield 
to commence his professional career he rode a borrowed horse and 
carried his goods and chattels in a pair of saddle-bags. Mr. Lin- 
coln remained in partnership with Major Stuart, with whom he had 
served in the Blackbawk war, until 1841, during the most of which 
time Mr. Stuart was in Congress and Mr. Lincoln in the State leg- 
islature, and he made but little progress in a financial or profes- 
sional way during that period. He, however, bad during that time 
a number of cases of some importance in the circuit court and a 
few in this court. The first case he had in th is court was at the 
December term, 1840, and was that of Scammon v. Cline, 2 Scam. 
456, in which be was defeated. That case involved a question of 
practice in taking an appeal from a justice of the peace to the cir- 
cuit court and established no principle of any importance. At the 
fulv term. 1841 , however, he did have in this court a most im- 
portant case, the decision of which was far-reaching in its results, 
and the manner in which he handled it showed that the future held 
for him in store a great professional career. It was brought in 
the Tazewell county circuit court by the administrators of Nathan 
Cromwell against David Bailey, upon a promissory note made to 
Cromwell in bis lifetime for the purchase of a negro girl named 
Nance, sold by Cromwell to Bailey. The plaintiff was represented 



by |udge Stephen T. Logan, who at that time was at the zenith of 
his professional career as a lawyer. Judgment was rendered upon 
the note by Judge William Thomas, who presided at the trial, in 
favor of the plaintiff for $431-97- Th e defendant prosecuted an 
appeal to this court, where it was contended the note was without 
consideration and void, as it was given as the purchase price of a 
human being, who, the evidence showed, as it was claimed, was 
free and therefore not the subject of sale. This court reversed the 
trial court, the opinion being written by Judge Breese, (3 Scam. 
71,) who held, contrary to the established rule in many of the 
southern States, that the presumption in Illinois was that a negro 
was free and not the subject of sale. Under the old rule the bur- 
den was upon the negro to establish that he was free, as the pre- 
sumption obtained that a black man was a slave; under the new 
rule established by the opinion of Judge Breese the presumption 
obtained that a black man in this State was free, and a person who 
asserted he was a slave was required to bring forward his proof, 
which often it was impossible to do. 

It was a fortunate circumstance in the life of Mr. Lincoln that 
in 1841 he allied himself with Judge Logan. The judge, like Mr. 
Lincoln, was from Kentucky and was a very great lawyer; not 
only a great lawyer, but a good lawyer— one thoroughly grounded 
in all the principles and technicalities of the common law, which 
at that time Mr. Lincoln was not, and during the next four years. 
and throughout his association with Judge Logan, Mr. Lincoln 
grew as a lawyer very rapidly. At that period there lived in Illi- 
nois a great number of very able lawyers— Logan, Stuart. Baker, 
Douglas, Trumbull, Davis, Treat, Breese, Hardin, Shields, Linder, 
Manney, Purple, Knox, and others,— many of whom would have 
graced the bar of any court, even that of the Supreme Court al 
Washington or the courts at Westminster, in England, and a num- 
ber of whom subsequently attained high distinction upon the bench 
or in other walks of public life. The United States courts and 
the State Supreme Court of Illinois were then held in Springfield, 
and Mr. Lincoln was immediately thrown into contact and compe- 



tition with those great men, and his contemporaries all attest the 
tact that at the time he was elected to Congress from the Spring- 
field district, in the fall of 1846, he was the peer, as a lawyer, of 
any of those great men. Upon the dissolution of the firm of Logan 
& Lincoln the firm of Lincoln & Herndon was formed, which lasted 
until Mr. Lincoln was elected president. 

Mr. Lincoln was, during the time that he was in partnership 
with Judge Logan and up to the time this ambition was satisfied, 
anxious to go to Congress. There were then living in that district 
also J. J. Hardin, E. D. Baker and Judge Logan, all of whom had 
the same ambition, and it has been charged, but perhaps without 
foundation, that the "Big Four," as these men were called, formed 
a coalition, whereby Hardin, Baker, Lincoln and Logan were each 
to have a term in Congress in the order in which they are named. 
Hardin, Baker and Lincoln each served a term in Congress, and 
Logan received the nomination but was defeated at the polls. 

There is another strange coincidence connected with three of 
those great men. Hardin fell at Buena Vista while leading his 
men in a charge during the Mexican war; Laker fell while lead- 
ing his men at Balls Bluff, during the war of the rebellion, and 
Mr. Lincoln, just at the close of the war, lost his life at the hands 
of an assassin. 

Mr. Lincoln was not a candidate for re-election 10 Congress, 
and upon his return to Springfield, in 1849, he resumed the prac- 
tice of the law. and it may he said for the next eleven years he 
devoted all his energy to his profession, and his development dur- 
ing that period was Mich that when he stepped from his law office 
in Springfield into the executive office at Washington, no man 
since the time of Washington was more thoroughly equipped and 
prepared to till wisely that exalted position than was he. 

During the eleven years preceding the election of Mr. Lincoln 
as president he not only rode the old eighth judicial circuit, but 
he had a large practice in this court and in the United Slates cir- 
cuit and district courts of Illinois, and he was often called to rep- 
resent larere interests in foreign Stalin. During the twenty-three 



years that Mr. Lincoln practiced law he had one hundred and 
seventy-three cases in this court, — a most remarkable record, — 
and I have found two cases (and perhaps there are others) which 
he had during that period in the Supreme Court of the United 
States. 

Mr. Lincoln was a great jury lawyer, as is attested by his ef- 
forts in the Anns! rang case and the Harrison case, — both murder 
cases,— and in many other cases. He was also equally strong with 
the court. For many years he represented some of the great cor- 
porations of the State, such as the Illinois Central Railroad Com- 
pany and the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company, 
and when he became a candidate for president, the lawyers of the 
State, recognizing his eminent ability, almost to a man gave him 
their earnest and warm support, and his nomination was largely 
secured through the influence of Judge David Davis, Gen. John M. 
Palmer, Leonard Swett, Richard J. Oglesby, Richard Yates, and 
other well known lawyers of Illinois with whom he had traveled 
the old eighth iudicial circuit and with whom he had tried cases in 
different sections of the State. 

If it were necessary to quote authority to prove the greatness 
of Mr. Lincoln as a lawyer, the testimony of innumerable members 
of the bench and bar who knew him might be cited. I will only 
refer to that of one,— Judge David Davis, of the old eighth judi- 
cial circuit, who afterwards graced with dignity and learning a 
seat upon the Supreme Bench of the United States. He said : "I 
enjoyed for over twenty years the personal friendship of Mr. Lin- 
coln. We were admitted to the bar about the same time and trav- 
eled for many \ears what is known in Illinois as the eighth judicial 
circuit. In 1848, when I first went on the bench, the circuit em- 
braced fourteen counties, and Mr. Lincoln went with the curt to 
every county. Railroads were not then in use and our mode oi 
travel was either on horseback or in buggies. * Mr. Lin- 

coln was transferred from the bar of that circuit to the office of 
the president of the United States, having been without official 
position since he left Congress, in .K 4 <). In all the elements that 



1U 

constitute the great lawyer he had few equals. He was great Loth 
at nisi prius and before an appellate tribunal. He seized the strong 
points of a cause and presented them with clearness and great com- 
pactness. His mind was logical and direct and he did not indulge 
in extraneous discussion. * * * His power of comparison was 
large, and he rarely failed in a legal discussion to use that mode of 
reasoning. The framework of his mental and moral being was 
honesty, and a wrong cause was poorly defended by him. * * * 
In order to bring into full activity his great powers it was neces- 
sary that he should be convinced of the right and justice of the 
matter which he advocated. When so convinced, whether the 
cause was great or small, he was usually successful. * * * He 
hated wrong and oppression everywhere, and many a man whose 
fraudulent conduct was undergoing review in a court of justice 
has writhed under his terrific indignation and rebukes." 

One of the most important cases which Mr. Lincoln ever tried 
was that of the Illinois Central Railroad Company against the 
county of McLean. (17 111. 291,) which case involved the right of 
McLean county to tax lands of the Illinois Central Railroad Com- 
pany in that county. Mr. Lincoln represented the company and 
was defeated in the trial court. The case was carried to thi< 
court, where it was argued orally twice by Mr. Lincoln, and the 
judgment of the lower court was reversed. Mr. Lincoln received 
a fee of $5000 for his services in that case, — the largest fee which 
he ever received. There was some controversy over its payment, 
and it was finally paid after it had been put into judgment. A 
lawyer at the present day of equal prominence with Mr. Lincoln 
would doubtless have charged $25,000 for the same service. 

Mr. Lincoln, in about 1856. was retained by Mr. Mannev in the 
famous case of McCormick v. Manney, tried in the United States 
court al Cincinnati, which involved the validity of the patents un- 
der which the McCormick reapers were manufactured and a claim 
of $400,000 for infringement. Governor William II. Seward and 
lion. Edwin M. Stanton were also retained in that case, — Mr. 
Seward lor the plaintiff, Mr. Stanton '.'or the defendant. Mr. I .in- 



11 

coin went to Cincinnati to assist in the trial of the case but did 
not argue the case orally. It has been said that during the trial 
Mr. Stanton ignored him and that Seward was supposed to have 
far out-ranked him as a lawyer. Mr. Lincoln, however, lived long- 
enough to demonstrate to the world that intellectually he towered 
above each of those great men as does the snow-capped peak above 
the foot-hills. 

Mr. Lincoln, a little later, appeared in the United States court 
in Chicago in the Rock Island Bridge case, — a case which involved 
the right to bridge the Mississippi river. It was really a contest 
between the railroads and the steamboats. Judge Blodgett, of Chi- 
cago, who was at the time of the trial a young man, later in his 
eventful life told me he listened to Mr. Lincoln's arguments in that 
case, and he said to me it was the greatest forensic effort that he 
had ever heard. In a nutshell, he said Mr. Lincoln's position was, 
if you have the right to go up and down a river you have the right 
to cross it. He further said his peroration was grand beyond de- 
scription. All the territory west of the Mississippi was then prac- 
tically unoccupied, and he said Mr. Lincoln described the future 
development of that great territory in such vivid terms that his 
language, to one who then heard it and now rode through that vast 
territory and saw the development that had taken place, almost 
seemed prophetic. . 

In the debate with Senator Douglas, in 1858, Mr. Lincoln dem- 
onstrated that he was a far greater lawyer than Senator Douglas. 
The answers which Senator Douglas attempted to make to the 
questions propounded to him by Mr. Lincoln at Freeport involved 
Mr. Douglas in a maze of contradictions and inconsistencies and 
alienated the south from him and perhaps lost him the presidency. 

After Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated as president his adminis- 
tration was immediately beset with many great and vexatious ques- 
tions which demanded immediate answers. The south claimed the 
right of secession, and the feeble administration which surrendered 
the reins of government to Mr. Lincoln had sought to compromise 
with the men who were attempting to break up the government. 
Mr. Lincoln firmly denied the right of secession, lie said that one 
party to a contract could nol voluntarily abrogate it. He said a 



12 

contract might be broken, but that it could not be rescinded, except 
for fraud in its inception, without the concurrent act of both par- 
ties. This argument was but re-stating well-settled principles of 
law, which he had heard announced and seen applied time and 
again upon the old eighth judicial circuit when he was practicing 
law, and his clear statement of the proposition satisfied the country 
and put the seceding States upon the defensive. 

In the controversy with England over the capture of Mason and 
vSlidell he upheld the principles for which the United States had 
contended in the war of 1812, and the vexatious problem was sat- 
isfactorily and wisely settled. 

When the United States treasury was depleted he said the issue 
of the green hack was authorized under the constitution as a war 
measure, and when the question of emancipating the slaves pre- 
sented itself for decision he also invoked the powers of the gov- 
ernment in time of war as a justification for his emancipation proc- 
lamation. 

All these questions, as well as the other great questions which 
confronted him during the time he was president, he met with. 
firmness, with wisdom and with courage and with great forethought 
and forbearance, and in each instance applied to their solution the 
great principles of law and justice with which he had stored his 
mind during the twenty-three years that he had been a student ol 
law and a practitioner in the courts of Illinois. 

I believe Abraham Lincoln to have heen the greatest man who 
lived during the century in which he was horn, and that the appre- 
ciation of his greatness will increase with I he receding years. I 
also believe the great achievements which he accomplished and 
which have magnified his name until it has filled the whole world. 
are due. in great measure, to the discipline and training received 
by him while an active member of the noble profession of the law. 

\l r. Jam i:s 1 I. Math kxy : 

May ii please the court—] rise principally to introduce Major 
lames A. Connollyj who. on behalf of the Sangamon County Bar 
Association, as its president, will move that the proceedings of the 



13 

day be spread at large upon the records of the court and published 
in its Reports. 

There is but one thought that I can add on this occasion, which 
is suggested in the eloquent response of one of the justices of this 
court, and that is : Just as it is true that the ability of Lincoln as 
a lawyer had tardy recognition, — it was a good third of a century 
or more before the public or the writers of history realized that 
he was, indeed, a lawyer, — so there is the cognate thought that his 
fame as a lawyer, as the fame of any lawyer, is ephemeral. There- 
fore it is peculiarly appropriate that this court, upon the motion 
of the bar, should do what it is doing to-day to perpetuate the 
memory of his professional life, and to record the truth that in his 
training at the bar there was the best possible training for the 
great work which he was subsequently to do. 

Hon. J. A. Connolly : 

May it please the court — The centenary of Abraham Lincoln, — 
that wondrous Illinois character, — comes as a benediction to the 
world. It is most fitting that it be observed by this court and emi- 
nently proper that the proceedings of this day should be spread 
upon the records of this court, for the men of future times to read 
and see what was thought of Abraham Lincoln on his first cen- 
tennial. I therefore, on behalf of the bar of Sangamon county, 
move that the proceedings and addresses of this day be spread upon 
the records of this court and made a permanent record. 

By the Chief Justice: 

On behalf of the court the kind offer of the Chicago gentleman 
to present the court with a bronze tablet containing the Gettys- 
burg address is accepted and will be given a permanent place in 
this building. The memorial presented, and the accompanying re- 
marks, and the response of Mr. Justice Hand, will be spread at 
large upon the records of this court and published in its pro- 
ceeding's. 



OCT 4 1909 



